At the dawn of the New Millennium there was a big talk about reaching the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 and amongst other goals is to eradicate poverty, illiteracy, to provide basic amenities and health care to all and the People were made to believe that all the problems would...

Growth for growth’s sake is the poison in the well; the fatal flaw that is leading us over the cliff of environmental and social catastrophe. Given how central this problem is to the future, it amounts to a dereliction of duty by those responsible. It is now up to the...

Nothing has actually changed in the real world, of course; there are just as many poor people as there were before. But the development industry has been happy to take the new story on board, claiming gains against poverty that haven’t actually happened. The NGO community is celebrating the fact...

The glitter has settled over New York, celebrities and world leaders have flown home and the party is over. A week after the adoption of the United Nations’ seventeen Sustainable Development Goals, we take a moment to reflect on the Global Goals and the efforts of The Rules community to...

The ubiquitous ‘development goals’ chosen by the United Nations – first Millennium (MDGs) in 2000 and now Sustainable (SDGs) – were and are and will be a distraction from the real work of fighting poverty done by social justice activists.

At first glance, the rhetoric of the SDGs seems irresistible. They talk about eliminating poverty “in all its forms, everywhere” by 2030, through "sustainable development" and even addressing extreme inequality. None of which we would argue with of course. But as with all half-truths, one just has to dig beneath...

A lot of people might agree that the United Nations as a concept is a good one – it’s intended to protect human rights, seemingly uphold some sense of ‘universal’ values and strive for some kind of international cohesion. But can an organisation arguably run by the old rich, (largely)...